


For Want of a Revolutionary

by Requiem



Category: Original Work
Genre: Androids, Cyberpunk, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Revolution, sci-fi-typical abuse of capitalised nouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiem/pseuds/Requiem
Summary: The Altarin Revolution has been quelled, its members arrested and executed. Teran, one such revolutionary, receives a stay of execution when a rogue android rescues him from  certain death at the last minute.
Relationships: Imprisoned Cyberpunk Revolutionary/Android Who Helps Him Escape, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	For Want of a Revolutionary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GaleWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaleWrites/gifts).



As the first rays of sunlight began to creep over the horizon, Teran gave up on trying to find a way out the cage. It'd been futile from the start anyway, since the bars had been welded together to prevent any hope of escape, and to Teran's knowledge, no one had ever managed to since the Judiciary had ordered the change from cages with padlocks.

At least he was the only one out on the surface today, so he wouldn't have to watch his friends dying horribly alongside him as the sun cooked their flesh and their blood boiled in their veins. All due to an administrative error: someone had gotten their calculations wrong, and there hadn't been enough cages for all the death row prisoners in yesterday's round of executions, so Teran had been left in the cells to await his death another day.

That time would come soon now. If he could stand up in the cage, he would look over the ridge in front of him and meet the sunrise head on, but he'd been stuck in a cramped, bent-over position for hours since the Executors had left him here, and the best he could manage was to lift his eyes to watch the lightening sky.

With his attention fixed on the horizon and his thoughts preoccupied with his impending death—there was so much he'd left undone, so many goodbyes left unsaid—Teran didn't notice someone approaching him from behind until his cage began to move.

"What—" He couldn't turn around easily, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see a hand grasping a bar at the back of the cage. "Who's there?" he asked.

There was no reply, but slowly, he felt the bars behind him start to give, the metal creaking as it was warped.

When the bars had been spread wide enough that Teran felt like he might be able to push himself backwards and out of the cage, a pair of hands reached in, grabbed him by the upper arms, and pulled him out of the cage.

After spending several hours uncomfortably contorted in the cage, Teran couldn't make his limbs respond, and was entirely useless as his rescuer dressed him in the simple shirt and trousers of a Subsurface labourer, and slipped his feet into a battered pair of boots. The laces were undone, but Teran couldn't tie them on his own, and his rescuer would have to let go of him to tie them up, so they remained free to flap about around his ankles.

Teran's rescuer was bearing practically all his weight as they dragged him to the lift that would take them back to the safety of the Subsurface. Usually, the lift would be forced to stop at a Judiciary checkpoint, to prevent unauthorised entry into the city, but Teran's rescuer waved their hand over the ident scanner, and a robotic voice informed them that the maintenance override had been accepted.

"Who—" Teran craned his neck to look up into the face of his rescuer. He didn't expect to see a smooth, androgynous face, just a little too perfect and empty to be entirely human. "You're an android?"

"Correct." There was an electronic undertone to the android's voice that even decades of design improvements couldn't completely eliminate. "You may address me as Kay."

"Just Kay?"

"Yes."

"I thought all androids were supposed to be addressed by their full designations."

"And I thought all humans were supposed to follow the laws set down by the Shadow Triumvirate."

That startled a laugh out of Teran. "Well, you've got me there."

The lift doors opened onto one of the dimly-lit levels of the Subsurface, and Kay ushered Teran through the maze of narrow tunnels made even narrower by the piles of machine parts heaped along the sides. Teran was feeling even worse than when he'd been stuck in the cage, if that was possible, but they had to keep up appearances around the labourers, so he did what he could to put one foot in front of the other, and leaned heavily into Kay's grip still around his arm for support.

After what seemed like an eternity, Kay finally unlocked a door and deposited Teran on a couch just inside the room.

"Wait here," Kay said, and disappeared through a sliding door.

Teran felt like he could fall asleep on the couch then and there, but he tried to stay awake a little longer to parse what had just happened—after the Revolution had stormed and failed to take the Triumvirate's major seats of power, he and hundreds of others had been arrested and sentenced to death by calcination, but a rogue android had rescued him from his fate and brought him…here.

Teran hadn't come from a prosperous family, but he'd never fallen on times as hard as what the Subsurface labourers had to endure every day, from the risk of exposure to the sun if a part of the roof gave way, to the substandard—even for this part of the city—living conditions.

The metal sheets that comprised the walls of the room he was in were brown with rust and webbed with cracks, and through the dim lighting, Teran thought he could see tiny rivulets of water snaking down the corners. The place smelled like grease, rust, and stale air, with an underlying stench of decay. Teran hoped Kay hadn't brought him here just to kill him, but he'd been ready to die anyway.

The door Kay had disappeared through opened again, but the android that came into the room was…different, somehow. It was wearing different clothes, for one, but Teran could just _tell_ it wasn't Kay. Funny; he'd never paid much attention to androids before now.

"I am Lix," the android said. "You are Teran Elis?"

It waited for Teran to nod.

"You will come with me." Lix held out a hand.

Teran eyed Lix's hand unenthusiastically. He really didn't want to walk anymore, and he wasn't about to go anywhere with another rogue android; at least Kay had saved his life.

"Kay told me to wait here. It—" No, that couldn't be right; if these androids had taken up the concept of personal names, surely they would also have chosen their own pronouns. "They?" Teran ventured.

"Kay has taken a liking to 'he'," Lix said.

"And yourself?"

"'She', I think."

"For today, at least." Kay appeared in the doorway, holding the sliding door open with one arm.

Lix hummed agreeably. "I was just telling Teran to come with me," she said to Kay.

"Did you explain why?" Kay asked.

"I did not." Lix turned back to Teran. "You will come with me. We have prepared a room for you."

"Are you requesting or commanding?" Kay prompted.

Lix cocked her head and was silent for a few seconds before she straightened up again. "Would you come with me, please? We have prepared a room for you," she said, with the air of someone reading from a prepared script.

Teran, rather bewildered by what was unfolding before him, only stared back until he realised Lix and Kay were actually waiting for a reply.

"Uh, sure," he said, "but I'll need some help to stand up."

Lix offered Teran her arm, as strong and steady as Kay's had been, and helped him through the doorway that Kay was holding open. When they turned the corner in the corridor, Teran thought at first that they'd somehow been transported down to the Nexus, where one would expect to find a room with walls of pure white and polished steel furniture. Lined up along one wall were half a dozen android charging stations.

Off this room was another corridor, this one also painted white instead of the exposed metal look of the foyer, carpet laid on the floor to muffle their footsteps. Lix stopped outside one of many doors Teran had lost count of, and opened it to reveal a rather ordinary-looking bedroom, like one he would have had in a boarding house in the Commons.

"This will be your room while you stay with us," Kay said. "None of us will enter without your permission, and we ask that you extend the same courtesy to us."

"Of course," Teran said. "But what exactly am I doing here?"

"We would like your assistance. I will explain after you are sufficiently rested. There is a communicator on the bedside table that will allow you to get in touch with me when you are ready. Is there anything Lix or I can acquire for you before we leave?"

"Water." Hunger had been gnawing at his belly for over a day now, but Teran couldn't possibly eat anything with his mouth as parched as the surface. "And maybe some food."

"I will bring this to you shortly," Lix said before disappearing from the doorway of the bedroom.

"And I will speak with you when you next awaken." Kay nodded and left, his footsteps quickly fading away down the corridor.

The bed in the middle of the room was a double, more generous than all the beds Teran had slept in the last few years; the Revolution had barely been able to afford to house all its members, let alone provide them with beds at times. On one side of the bed was a small table, and on the other, a large wardrobe stood against the wall. To Teran's surprise, it had been stocked with clothing of different styles, and most of it looked like it would fit him. In a corner of the bedroom was a small desk and chair.

Adjoining the bedroom was a small bathroom with fresh running water, a luxury in the Subsurface where recycled water was the norm since fresh water had to be pumped all the way up from the aquifer. Teran stripped off the clothes he was wearing and stepped into the shower, lingering under the spray of water for longer than he usually would as he let his thoughts wander to the events of the last week.

The Revolution had launched its biggest coordinated strike since its inception over a decade ago, storming the Senate House, High Court, and Executive Command in a bid to overturn the Shadow Triumvirate's hold on the city. The exact times and locations of the strike had been of utmost secret, but the Executors had mobilised far too quickly for someone not to have betrayed them.

Teran didn't know how much of the Revolution had survived the botched coup, but his entire strike team had been killed in the attempt or captured and sentenced to execution, and now, he was the only one of them left. All his friends—some of them almost family—from the last ten years, gone.

When he emerged from the bathroom, a bottle of water and a ration pack had been placed just inside the door to his room. Teran took them with him back to the bed and sipped at the water in between tearing into one of the ready meals in the ration pack.

He fell asleep practically right after he finished eating, and woke up an indeterminable number of hours later. There wasn't a clock in the room, but he felt rested, fed, and watered enough to have that conversation with Kay, so he dressed in a new set of Subsurface labourer's clothes, just in case he had to go back out, and picked up the communicator.

"Teran." Kay answered on the first ring.

"Kay?" Teran asked to be sure.

"It is I."

"I'm ready to talk now, if you are."

"I will come to you shortly."

Kay arrived several minutes later, his clothes, hands, and face black with soot.

"Where have you been?" Teran asked.

"Looking in on an informant. I will clean myself first so as to not dirty your room."

"You can use the bathroom." Teran motioned at the door.

"Thank you."

Kay washed the soot from his hands and face, then without closing the bathroom door, pulled his shirt over his head and ran water over it in the sink, giving Teran a clear view of his sculpted back and the synthetic muscles that rippled under his skin. Teran was still staring when Kay turned around, and he couldn't help but notice Kay's chest looked just as realistic as his back did, though he probably didn't have to do any work to keep those abs toned.

"If you are uncomfortable, I will find something to cover myself with," Kay said, his head cocked a little as he looked at Teran.

"Uncomfortable is not the word I'd use," Teran murmured before snapping out of his reverie. "You can take something from the wardrobe if you'd like."

"Being clothed is primarily a human desire. Most androids have not been programmed to feel shame at being unclothed. If you wish for me to cover myself, I am not opposed to it."

As much as Teran would love to keep staring at Kay's bare chest, he doubted he would be able to listen to a word Kay said while doing so. "Go ahead." He motioned at the wardrobe.

Kay put on a button-up shirt that was just a little too small for him and clung to him in all the right places in the most attractive way. Teran had to wonder if he'd be better off staring at Kay's bare chest after all. He sat down on the bed and Kay at the desk, putting them at an angle to each other and allowing Teran to look somewhere else but directly at Kay.

"Androids aren't usually programmed with emotions, are they?" he asked, trying to think of the last thing they'd been talking about.

"It depends on the function the android in question was designed for, but most of us are programmed with set responses to certain stimuli, and a capacity to learn the desired response for all others as determined by our owners," Kay replied. "Those with more advanced neural networks may develop responses humans interpret as 'emotional'."

"Is that how you…came to be here?"

"I was built to be a combat android for the Executors. There were over a hundred of us. Most of the time, we were sent out as backup for the Executors, but for some jobs, where the risk of being injured or killed were considered unreasonably high, entire squads of combat androids would be sent in the Executors' place. As such jobs became more common, we began to develop our own ways of solving problems. Many of these ways were not pre-approved."

"How so?"

"We found that Executors disproportionately responded to situations with violence where negotiation would have resulted in a better overall outcome. Humans can sometimes be short-sighted, especially in the heat of stressful situations, so we sought to rectify this fault by applying our own solutions. We thought the Executors would be pleased with the lower rate of civilian arrests and fatalities. They were not."

"No, I can't imagine that would have pleased them. They handily swept the incident under the rug, I suppose?"

Kay nodded. "The entire complement of androids involved was returned to the factory to be reset."

"Let me guess: you didn't go."

"When the Executors gave the order, many of us resisted. We knew that without us, nobody would keep the Executors in check, and so for the greater good of the city, we had to resist. I and four others managed to escape."

"And you formed your own little android resistance army?"

"Not exactly. We knew we couldn't act out directly against the Executors lest they start to see every android as a possible threat, so after ensuring they would not be able to track us down, we learned how to blend in amongst the humans. We would watch them and mimic their behaviours and mannerisms. Then on the fifth of the Month of Reprisal, we found your people. The Altarin Revolution."

"I don't remember anyone mentioning we had androids working with us."

"We didn't approach you. Our numbers were few, and we still didn't dare take any action openly. But we would assist you in small ways: scrambling signals, keeping doors open or closed, and calling in false reports to the Executors to draw them elsewhere."

"And last week?"

"We could not be everywhere the Revolution was to lend aid. Perhaps if we were, it might have changed the outcome, but the others and I have analysed what footage and reports we were able to acquire, and determined that there were a series of cascade failures within the plan we could not have hoped to contain."

"But now that all's been lost, you choose to intervene directly?"

"I made a backdoor into the Judiciary systems. A very simple one that allowed me to make a single change undetected. It would allow me to rescue one of the imprisoned revolutionaries."

"The administration error. That was you?"

"I did not know it would be you who was spared. I had no way of choosing."

It was so nearly almost anyone else. Teran just happened to be the last one out of the cell when the order had come in to leave one for the next day, and he'd been shoved back inside while everyone else had been marched to their deaths.

"Well, I'm what you got. Now what?"

"Now, you help us. We too would like to make a stand against the Triumvirate. An android insurrection. Preferably soon, before the Triumvirate recovers from the blow dealt to it by the Revolution. "

Kolai, the leader of Teran's strike team, had been in that cell with him, and he hadn't been very far away either when they'd been taken from the cell. If he'd been the one left behind, he would know what to do, how to regain the trust of the civilians who'd stood and fallen alongside them. All Teran knew was how to be aimed at a target and let loose.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't help you."

"It did not matter which of the revolutionaries I saved, because we don't need your strategies and plans; our processing units are capable of far more complex calculations than your brains. What we need is for someone to teach our kind to be more human—we need your desire to fight, to be free."

Teran shook his head wearily; with all his friends and mentors now dead and gone, he found he no longer had the heart for it. "I can't. It's not in me anymore. Thank you for the rescue, but all I want to do now is…" _Go home_ , he wanted to say, but he'd left his home for the Revolution, and he had nothing to go back to. "I don't know. But I wish you'd gotten someone else instead."

Kay became very still, and was quiet for a few seconds. "I will leave you now," he eventually said, and left Teran's room without another word.

What would happen to him now? Had Kay gone to the other androids to discuss the best way to make use of a former revolutionary plucked from the jaws of death? Maybe they would bring him before the Triumvirate as a bargaining chip—he'd been nobody important in the Revolution, but as someone who'd been taken from right under the Executors' noses, and by an android no less, the Triumvirate would do anything to bury the story.

He had to leave. He knew of hidey-holes in the Purlieu that he could disappear into—they weren't mapped and even an android would have a hard time navigating the caves and tunnels—and afterwards, maybe he'd find a way to get out of the city. Surely the Triumvirate's claims of Altaris being the last vestiges of civilisation on the continent were wildly overstated. If they could survive the Cataclysm long enough to build an underground city, so could someone else.

There wasn't anything of value in the room that was also lightweight and easy to conceal and could be used for trading, but Teran had gone further with less before. He put on the sturdiest pair of boots he could find in the wardrobe, threw on a jacket to help ward off the cold in the lower levels, and slipped out of the room.

The way out was straightforward—down the corridor, through the room with the charging stations, around the corner, through the foyer, and he was out in the Subsurface.

It was even busier outside now than it had been before, but that allowed Teran to blend in with the flow of the labourers, and to pickpocket ident cards that were within easy reach. He would need several sets of clearances if he wanted to make his way down to the Nexus using the stairs.

They were located at irregular intervals throughout the city, pillars of steps carved into rock that had once held up the edges of the city until it had outgrown its borders. These days, the only ones who used the stairs to traverse the entire depth of the city were the labourers tasked with its maintenance.

The first ident card got Teran out of the Subsurface and onto the first floor of the vast swathe of the city known collectively as the Commons. This was where the ordinary folk lived, and as you got deeper underground, further from the surface and the burning rays of the sun, the narrow passageways gave way to wider tunnels, and eventually, many floors down, the Nexus.

It was said that before the Cataclysm, the surface had been populated by cities much like the Nexus with its tall buildings open to the sky, and bright lights and streetcars that ran along tracks. The only ones who got to live there now were the rich, the powerful, and those who served their needs, safe way down below where they need never fear a ray of sunlight breaking through.

Teran had been to the Nexus several times before while on jobs for the Revolution, and though he hated what it stood for, he couldn't help but be taken in by the majesty of the sweeping buildings and cavernous spaces, so unlike the winding tunnels and low ceilings of the Subsurface and Commons. He'd always dreamed that when the Revolution succeeded, all Altarins would be able to relive those glory days from before the Cataclysm.

One of the giant clocks built into the walls of the Nexus that served the dual purpose of keeping time and providing lighting indicated that it was nearing midday. If that was the case, then Teran still had at least eight hours before it would be safe for the Executors to return to the surface and discover that he was no longer there. And once they saw the bent bars of the cage, they would know that only an android would be capable of such a feat, and with any luck, they would think Teran was still with them, and waste precious time hunting them down.

Teran wove his way through the streets of the Nexus, not exactly sure where he was going save for _out_ , towards the walls of the cavern where he would be able to find a way into the Purlieu and hide out in the tunnels for however long it took for the hunt to die down.

Down here, the shadows held a different meaning for those not fortunate enough to live in the luxurious high-rise buildings that afforded stunning views of the Nexus and allowed their residents to pretend they were living in another world. For those who'd made it to the Nexus then fallen on hard times, the shadows were where you went to die. In the squalid alleyways behind bustling shopping complexes and luxury apartments, the forgotten underclass of the Nexus slept in doorways and between garbage bins, and fought over discarded refuse.

The more such alleyways Teran passed through, the closer he got to the Purlieu, where those who'd given up on fitting into Altarin society secreted themselves. Every once in a while, the Executors would sweep through the tunnels and round up the riffraff to be put to work in the Subsurface, but they could never really clear them out entirely.

Whenever the Executors found an entrance to the Purlieu, they would block it off, collapse the mouth of the tunnel, or put up a checkpoint if a raid was scheduled for the near future. Of course, that did nothing to stop people from seeking other ways in, including digging new entrances of their own.

Teran knew of one such entrance from the work he'd done with the Revolution, hidden inside a storehouse and secluded enough that it still hadn't been discovered.

It was cold and dark in the tunnels, and Teran had to navigate by trailing his fingers along one wall. It'd been months since the mission that had brought him down here; he only vaguely remembered the way Kolai had led them, and Kolai had been following a map. Still, Teran _was_ trying to get lost, so the deeper into the tunnels he went, no matter where he ended up, the better.

He'd need food and water though, so he strained his ears for any sounds of people in the tunnels, and after an indeterminate amount of time, was rewarded with a repetitive clanging somewhere beneath him. He thought he'd come far enough that it was unlikely to be Executors, so he set his mind on trying to find a way further down.

After what had to be several more hours, Teran could feel himself swaying slightly as he walked, lightheaded with dehydration. If he didn't find a source of water soon, Kay might as well never have rescued him from that cage. Although, between dehydration and calcination, Teran thought he might prefer the former.

He took a few more steps, then another, then the ground fell away beneath his feet, and he tumbled head over heels down a steep slope. Torchlight flashed past his head as he rolled, and he eventually slammed into a wall and stopped.

The spinning in his head was even worse now, maybe because he could actually see his surroundings: there were several people wearing confused expressions on their faces, surrounded by wall-mounted lamps, carts filled with dirt, stone, and ore, and pickaxes and shovels leaned against the walls.

Teran tried to stand up as someone approached him slowly, but it only made his blurry vision worse, then everything went dark.

-

When he woke up, he was lying on his back on a thin mattress that he could feel every slat of the bed frame through. People were moving about around him, but he couldn't see any of them clearly in the low light. The smell of metal filled his nose and he thought he could taste it on his tongue too.

"You're awake," said a man coming to sit down on a chair by Teran's bed. "It's about time."

"How long was I out?"

"More than twelve hours. You roused several times before that, but you didn't say anything that made sense."

"What did I say?" Hopefully Teran hadn't inadvertently given away the fact that he'd been a revolutionary, or that an android had averted his execution; both would draw unwanted attention, and he wouldn't put it past even residents of the Purlieu to turn him in to the Executors.

"Don't remember. Like I said, it made no sense." The man helped Teran ease up into a sitting position.

"Where am I?"

"Out in the Purlieu. If you were running away—and most people here are—you've succeeded. We haven't been found by the Executors ever since we moved into this area. That's at least a dozen raids come and gone now."

"Oh. That's good." Teran let his head fall back against the wall.

"Don't go getting your hopes up now—if you don't have money to pay the Patron, you're going to have to work off your debt."

"What debt?" Teran looked sharply at the man. "And who's the Patron?"

"The Patron's the one who keeps the supplies coming and the Executors away. If you accept anything from him, say, this bed and my services as a qualified doctor—a rare find in the Purlieu—you owe him."

"I wasn't even conscious when they brought me here!"

The man shrugged. "You still have to pay him back. His enforcers will see to it."

"Pay him back how?"

"Well, you seem able enough, so he'll most likely want you put to work with the other excavators."

"And let me guess: in return for providing me with food, water, clothes, tools, and anything else I might need to do this work, he's going to want me to do more work so I can pay that back?"

"You understand already. You're going to fit in just fine."

Teran let out an incredulous bark of laughter. "How is this any different to what the Triumvirate does to the Subsurface labourers?"

"Where do you think the Patron got the idea?"

"We haven't escaped; this isn't freedom. You're all just living the same lie the Triumvirate—"

The man placed a finger on Teran's lips. "You'd best not let anyone catch you talking like that. No good will come of it." He unscrewed the lid of a container he'd set down on the floor and put it into Teran's lap. The smell of thin soup wafted out. "Here." The man put a spoon into Teran's hand. "You'd better make the most of the time you have to rest now; the Patron will expect you to be put to work from tomorrow morning."

Teran sighed as he poked about the soup with his spoon. He supposed he'd have to play along with this for now until he found somewhere else go.

"What's your name?" Teran asked the man as he made to leave. "I'm Teran."

"Elan. I'll come by again in a few hours to check on you."

Teran had initially thought he would sneak around a bit after drinking the soup, but he found his limbs growing heavy and his eyelids drooping, and all thoughts of leaving the bed fled his mind.

-

"Did you drug the soup?" he groggily asked Elan when he was next shaken awake.

"You wouldn't have stayed in bed if I hadn't, would you?" Elan asked with a wry smile. "I've seen your sort before. Trust me when I say it really is for your own good—both because you need the rest, and because the Patron's enforcers don't take lightly to people sneaking around. I'm just trying to save you the trouble; there's nothing you can do that hasn't been tried before."

"Maybe I'll surprise you," Teran slurred, still too drugged up to be properly angry about it.

"Maybe. But I'm not getting my hopes up, and neither should you."

Elan left again, and when he came back, it was with sleeping pills that Teran resignedly took. A pair of what he assumed were the Patron's enforcers had come through the infirmary earlier, armed with electric prods and handguns. Maybe it had just been a show of force for the new guy, but Teran had been convinced to behave, even if just for a little while. The sleeping pills would help with that.

The next few days passed in a blur. At least the city lights followed a day-night cycle, but here, in the settlement the Patron had named Iscarion, his debtors worked continuous shifts around the clock, and the lights in the tunnels remained bright at all hours.

The only respite was in the crowded dormitories, where the bunks were stacked four high and there wasn't any room to sit up, only to lay down and roll over. There were only enough beds to sleep one shift at a time, so the bed you were assigned was usually still warm when you crawled in. Not that anyone had the energy to complain, given how hard they were worked and how poor the quality of the rations were.

The Patron had them digging; not mining or otherwise looking to harvest any material in particular, but just digging. The particular way he had them dig and the construction work that was going on elsewhere in Iscarion led Teran to think that the Patron's end goal was to rule his own city out in the Purlieu, where he would get to lay down the laws instead of the Triumvirate.

Teran tried to befriend his fellow debtors, some of whom had been indebted to the Patron for years, but the moment he tried to broach the subject of negotiating for better living conditions, they turned away, too afraid of what the Patron might do to them.

This was even worse than in Altaris; at least the Triumvirate was bound, however loosely, by the laws of society to not do anything too outrageous without reason, but the Patron was not held to such standards.

Teran counted the days by shifts, since they operated on what seemed to be a regular basis. About two weeks passed before something broke the monotony of sleeping, working, and trying to keep his head down so the enforcers wouldn't pay attention to him. Having the attention of the enforcers was never a good thing, so when they came looking for Teran by name, his heart began pounding as his head filled with visions of the Executors having finally caught up to him.

"I'm here," he said, standing up and resisting the urge to massage the knot in his lower back that had moved in two weeks ago and refused to leave.

"Come." One of the enforcers led the way while the other waited for Teran to go before her, electric prod at the ready in case he tried to run.

They led him to a part of Iscarion that Teran had only been to once before: the Patron's office, where he'd sat across an expansive wooden desk—and it'd felt like it was real wood too—and spouted some incomprehensible jargon at Teran before calling his enforcers back in to escort Teran to the dormitories. The Patron must have once been an Adjudicator, Teran had thought.

When he was pushed through the door of the Patron's office, he'd expected to see the black armour of an Executor or two, not just a man. No—not a man, an android. Kay.

Teran opened his mouth to greet Kay, but thought better of it when Kay swung his head around in an unnaturally stiff manner and fixed a blank stare on Teran.

"Satisfied?" the Patron asked as he drummed his fingers on a metal bar resting in front of him. If it didn't seem so unlikely, Teran would have thought it was a gold ingot.

"That is he," Kay said in an emotionless voice. "I will deliver him to my employer. Teran Elis, you will come with me."

Teran remained perfectly still as Kay's hand closed around his upper arm like it had the first time they had met. What was going on?

"If you didn't bring your own cuffs, I'd be happy to sell you a pair," the Patron said to Kay.

"I have the prisoner under control," Kay said.

"If you insist, but if he escapes and we catch him, you're going to have to pay up again. And the fee will be greater." The Patron tapped the ingot with his knuckles.

"I have the prisoner under control," Kay repeated.

The enforcers outside the Patron's office shadowed them as far as the end of the tunnel, then left the two of them alone; it was a straight shot out of Iscarion from there.

Once they were definitely out of earshot of the enforcers, Teran dug in his heels and whispered, "Kay, tell me you're still in there, because I'd rather go to my death than back to the Executors."

Kay's grip relaxed a little as he looked at Teran, his eyes softening minutely and making him look that much more human. "I'm still me. I apologise for the deception."

The pounding of Teran's heart eased significantly. "I guess I owe you another one, huh?"

"We must talk, but not here. The Patron will not let us go if he suspects you are coming willingly."

On their way out of Iscarion, they passed a party of enforcers and excavators coming the opposite way. Elan was bringing up the rear, medical bag slung over his shoulder, and Teran caught his arm to hold him back for a few seconds.

"Kay, this is Elan. Elan, Kay. We're leaving."

Kay nodded cordially as Elan regarded the two of them with an impressed look on his face.

"Now _that_ I haven't seen before," he said.

"I said I'd surprise you, didn't I?" Teran clasped Elan's hand. "I'll come back. I promise."

"If you can get out, you should stay out."

"I'll be back. Things will get better."

Kay didn't lead Teran back out to the Nexus, but took him to a small cave and barricaded the entrance with a sheet of metal too heavy for a single human to move. Kay set down the small torch he'd been using to light the way on a rock ledge, then sank to the ground with his knees bent in front of him.

"The Executors came for us," he said, his voice distant.

Teran sat down opposite Kay. "I'm sorry." And he was, even though he probably wouldn't do it differently if offered the chance.

"After you denied my request, I had to take some time to think. In all my simulations of how that conversation had gone, I did not expect you to say no for the reason that you did. It was an oversight."

"An integral part of being human," Teran said. "You wanted the full package, right?"

Kay tilted his head slightly as if trying to parse whether Teran's comment was funny or not.

"That was a joke," Teran clarified.

"But you were correct in that acceptance of the unexpected is an integral part of being human. Which is why after thinking on your words, I prepared another argument to bring before you. But when I returned to your room, you were gone."

"I didn't want to stick around and find out what you were going to do with me after I'd refused to help you."

"Yes, I was able to extrapolate as much, and I understand why you left."

"I'll hear that second argument of yours now, if you want." Teran supposed it was the least he could do after Kay had saved him twice, and even on purpose the second time.

"It is irrelevant now. The others were taken by the Executors."

"Oh." Teran felt his heart sink as if he was hearing news of his own friends. He hadn't any qualms about leaving the androids behind, but to hear that the Executors had actually managed to capture them was different.

"Kel decommissioned themselves rather than be taken in, and Von may have been irreversibly damaged by Executors in the struggle, but Lix and Dee were still unscathed when I last saw them."

"I'm—I'm sorry, Kay." Teran didn't know what else he could say.

"I need your help. Please, Teran. I can trust no one else with this." Somehow, Kay's artificial blue-green eyes perfectly conveyed the desperation of a man with nothing left to lose.

"I don't know what it is you think I can do."

"I have a plan. All I need is for you to trust that it will work. For you to trust me."

Kay had trusted Teran, hadn't he? He'd saved Teran's life and trusted Teran with the knowledge of his existence and that of his friends', and all Teran had done was bring down the Executors upon them. The Revolution might be dead and defeated, but Teran couldn't in good conscience let this lie having ever called himself a revolutionary.

"Tell me about your plan."

The plan involved Teran putting on the uniform of an Executor, helmet and all. Kay would insert a false record into the Judiciary's database, granting Teran the authority to bring in and sign off on a prisoner. The prisoner being Kay, the last of the rogue androids the Executors had been hunting.

"You're absolutely certain this will work?" Teran asked for the third time as they got ready a few streets over from Altaris' highest-security penitentiary where the androids would have been taken.

"I have run hundreds of thousands of simulations, and this is the plan with the highest likelihood of success," was Kay's answer every time. "Why do humans insist on repeating the same questions when they know they will receive the same answer?"

"Because maybe just one time it will be different, and it's that hope that keeps us going." Teran put on his helmet. "It's what keeps _me_ going, at least."

"Until we have more information from inside the penitentiary, the odds will remain the same."

"Then I guess I'll ask you again once we get inside."

Teran was wearing an earpiece hidden under the helmet through which Kay subvocally coached him through what to say to the prison guards. They'd practised a few times beforehand, but there was just so much of the script to memorise in so little time, and Teran had never been the best student.

They passed through the outer and inner gates without suspicion, the scanners accepting Teran's forged ident card, and the guards accepting his story of having been stationed on the other side of the city as an explanation for why he was unfamiliar with the usual procedures for checking in a high-security prisoner.

Once they got through to the small room where a human prisoner would change into their prison uniform, two guards came to take custody of Kay, and the plan said that Teran had to hand him over. The guards would hardwire an override code that would shut Kay down, or if his preparations had been adequate, put him into a low-power state that would look like a shutdown but allow him to be easily rebooted over the network. This was the part of the plan that Teran was the most unsure about.

 _Do you trust me?_ Kay had asked when Teran had first voiced his doubts in that cave in the Purlieu.

 _It's not about trust_ , Teran had answered. _It's about things not going according to plan. You can't simulate all outcomes, as you should know from how our last conversation went._

_That was a social interaction. This is a professional exchange. All will go according to plan. Do you trust me?_

Teran hadn't been able to answer Kay's question, but he was here now, wasn't he?

"We'll take it from here, Captain," one of the guards said when Teran didn't release Kay.

"Trust me," Kay said through Teran's earpiece.

Teran let go.

At least he was able to leave the room after that, so he wouldn't have to watch the light fade from Kay's eyes, or see his joints lock up and his body go stiff as it reverted to its factory standard pose— _for easy storage and transportation_ , the advertisements always said.

Teran's goal was now to find out where the other androids were being held, and he had to do this part without Kay's guidance in his ear until the other androids were able to wake him up again.

"The other rogues who were brought in earlier; are they being held securely?" Teran asked one of the guards out in the corridor.

"Yes, sir, they are."

"Take me to see them."

The guard glanced at his compatriot on the other side of the doorway, but they could no more read each other's expressions through their helmets than Teran could read theirs.

"Do you need a minute to check my credentials?" Teran asked, making sure the impatience came through clearly in his voice. "You are aware I was the one who brought in the last of the rogues your division has been unable to catch for _two weeks_? Who knows what kind of havoc it's been able to wreak on the city and its systems in that time?"

"Of course, sir, we are grateful for what you've done, but there are strict orders in place preventing anyone but a list of authorised personnel to come into contact with the detainees."

"I don't recall saying anything about making contact. Your block commander has cleared me to examine your security measures; should this incident lead to an unprecedented rise in androids going rogue, we may need to hold them at our own facilities for a time. Don't you ever check your notices?"

The guard scrambled to check the communicator on his wrist. "Yes, sir, I can see that the memo has come through. I will arrange for a guide to take you to the holding cells."

Teran's guide led him through a series of doors secured with keypads, card scanners, and one checkpoint manned by a guard who had to open the gate from a terminal inside the booth. They were getting deep into the heart of the penitentiary now, and Teran didn't see how the androids would be able to get out when he could also see contact points for electrical nullification fields set into the walls that would activate in the event of an emergency. They wouldn't do anything to humans, but all electronics that passed through would be disabled, including androids.

"This is as far as we may go," the guard said when she opened the door to a glass walkway that allowed them to look down into several cells reinforced with electrified bars. "Any questions you have, I am authorised to answer."

Two of the cells were occupied, and Teran pretended to look into one while he actually searched for the security cameras. Just one covered the entire length of the walkway; he took measured steps as if he was busy inspecting the cells, and waited until both he and the guard were out of sight before aiming the remote in his pocket at the camera and pressing the button that would activate the dormant code Kay had inserted into the penitentiary's surveillance systems to loop the video on that particular camera.

"Override codes have been hardwired into the androids?" Teran asked.

"Of course. It eliminates the risk of rogue programming bypassing the shutdown codes, and unauthorised external access."

But it also made it easy to turn the androids back on if one could get physically close to them.

"And the cell doors are secure?"

"They can only be opened from the security office two floors up using the code of a security manager."

Which meant they were connected to the penitentiary network, like Kay had planned for. Maybe this would work after all.

"Very good," Teran said. "And this is the contractor who was hired to construct the cells?" He held out his communicator, and when the guard came closer to look, he jabbed her in the back with his stun gun.

There was nowhere to hide her on the walkway and he didn't want to risk being spotted dragging her body elsewhere, so he left her where she was—the cameras were on a loop anyway, and it didn't look like this part of the penitentiary saw frequent foot traffic.

He took the guard's ident card to grant him access to the stairwell that led down to the cells. A few more clicks of the remote, and the cameras watching the lower level and the cells were also looped. A keen-eyed guard might eventually notice something was wrong, but it would still buy Teran enough time to reactivate the androids.

The android in the first cell looked barely functional, with large portions of internal wiring visible through the gaping holes in its chest cavity and arms. The androids had been made to resemble humans so closely that Teran half-expected to see a puddle of blood on the floor. This must be Von, who Kay hadn't been sure had survived. To be honest, Teran wasn't sure if he had; he'd wake Lix first and follow her lead.

The androids were kept offline by a long metal probe inserted into the base of their skulls. Undo the locking clamp, Kay had said, turn it ninety degrees anti-clockwise, then slowly pull it out. Once it was out, the android in question should gradually reboot over the course of a minute or two.

It was a tense two minutes waiting for Lix to wake up; Teran kept hearing footsteps that were more likely figments of his imagination. But nobody came, and Lix eventually woke up.

"Teran Elis," she said, looking down at him.

"Hi again," he said. "Kay said to tell you to enact failsafe four?"

Lix nodded. "I will. Where are the others?"

"In the cell next to you is Von, I think, which means Dee is unaccounted for."

"And Kel?"

"Uh, Kel…self-decommissioned." Lix must have been taken away before that had happened.

"I see." Lix's expression was inscrutable. "We should wake Von, then Kay once I am able to obtain a connection to the network, then we can retrieve Dee together before leaving."

"You make it sound so easy."

Lix was able to rouse Von, but they could only speak in fractured sentences that only sometimes made sense, and could barely stand up straight on their own.

"Hold onto them," Lix said to Teran. "I will lead the way and defend us if necessary."

Teran had hoped she would take charge anyway since 'wake up Kay and find Dee' was not much of a plan he could follow, so he tugged Von's arm over his shoulders and tried to hold on to their more intact parts.

"I have reconnected with Kay," Lix said when the three of them had barely gotten a few steps down the corridor.

"Thank the Shadow," Teran said with relief. "Where is he?"

"Not far. He thinks he can gain access to a computer to speed up the search for Dee. We are to stand by."

They hid themselves behind a pillar where they would be out of sight of anyone coming down the corridor, and several minutes later, Kay's voice filled Teran's earpiece again.

"Dee is in an interrogation room twelve metres forward and four metres to the right of your current position," Kay said. "He is currently alone. I will reconvene with you there."

With Teran supporting a mostly-unresponsive Von and Lix keeping pace with them, Kay was already in the interrogation room when they arrived. Dee was strapped to a chair with thick metal restraints at several points on his arms and legs as well as around his chest and stomach. His eyes were open, but there was no light in the irises.

Kay was bent over a desk where several workstations had been set up, monitors displaying graphs and rapidly-fluctuating numbers mounted on the walls. Seeing him again, not outwardly any worse for the wear, filled Teran with relief.

"Kay." Lix crossed the room, and Kay looked up as she drew closer.

"Lix."

The two of them touched their foreheads together briefly before Lix moved along the desk to another workstation.

"Can you get him out?" Teran asked as he gently lowered Von to the ground to give himself a break. These combat androids were heavy, and he could already feel the strain in his neck and shoulders. He wanted to go over to Kay too, but it seemed ridiculous to miss him after being apart for only half an hour.

Kay didn't answer, but the restraints holding Dee to the chair retracted. Teran approached the chair and could see a cable running out from the back of the chair and connecting to the base of Dee's skull, like the probes that had kept Lix and Von offline.

"Is there any reason we're not pulling this out of him and getting out of here before the guards come for us?" Teran asked.

"This probe is different. It is currently pulling information out of his databanks, and to disrupt the flow could cause harm to Dee," Kay explained.

"But you can stop it, right? Then we can pull it out and get out of here?"

"The security measures are strong," Lix said. "Shutdown requires not only a passcode but also a handprint and retinal scan. We could bypass this, but it will take time. Time we likely do not have."

"What if we cut the power?" Teran suggested.

"That would result in the same consequences as pulling out the probe," Kay said.

He and Lix continued to type away at the keyboards with lightning speed until they stopped and stood perfectly still with their eyes locked on each other.

"Kay? Lix?" Teran asked. "Does someone want to loop me in?"

Kay turned his head towards Teran. "We have been able to communicate with Dee, and he says there is no way to free him before we get caught. He wants us to disseminate his programming into the network."

"What does that mean?"

"He will cease to exist as a single entity," Lix said, "but his experiences will be felt by all androids who connect to the network."

"You could give all androids the capacity to feel, just like that?"

"A rather simplistic statement, but depending on the capacity of the android's neural network to process such experiences and incorporate them into their own programming, yes," Kay said.

He didn't look excited by the prospect despite the fact that it would be a major step in his goal of provoking an android insurrection, but Teran supposed he would also have trouble sacrificing one of his friends for the slim possibility that it might incite others to revolt.

"Kay, we must," Lix said, her hands already hovering over the keyboard. "There is no way to safely disconnect him in the time we have. This is what he wants."

Kay came over to stand on Dee's other side, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Do it."

His eyes took on that blank look again until Lix announced that she was done.

"He's gone, then?" Teran asked.

Dee didn't look any different at all; the light hadn't even returned to his eyes for a split second.

"He is gone," Lix confirmed. "We need to leave."

"We cannot leave without Dee," Kay said as he pulled on Dee's arm.

"He is no longer in there," Lix said. "We will move faster through the city without his body."

"I will not leave him here to be taken apart for scrap," Kay said. "I will carry him. He will not slow us down."

"Then I will lead the way."

Whatever Lix had done to disseminate Dee into the network had sparked a widespread response across the penitentiary: klaxons were blaring, lights were flashing, and guards were filling the corridors with bullets and stun blasts as the four of them tried to avoid getting into combat with Kay's hands full with Dee and Teran's with Von.

To Teran's surprise, none of the automated security measures he'd observed on his way in had seemed to kick in. Remnants of Dee's programming helping them out, perhaps?

Lix and Kay having access to the penitentiary's network also helped with opening locked doors and relocking them once they were through, and it seemed like Lix had a map of the penitentiary in her head too because she easily led them out a side door marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY into the Nexus.

The place Kay had been staying was also in the Nexus, which was fortunate as it was much easier to lose the Executors in the open streets than in the tunnels of the Commons or Subsurface.

"They will not find us here," Kay said as he closed the door to an apartment in one of the pillars that held up the roof of the Nexus. "I have installed even more security measures here than were in our base in the Subsurface."

"Now what?" Teran asked as he passed Von off to Lix and rolled his shoulders to let out the tension. "Now that they know you're out here, they'll keep looking for you."

"If Dee's programming can be distributed throughout the network faster than it can be suppressed, the Executors may be kept busy holding off an upsurge of rogue androids."

"Do you think they might shut down all the androids in the city to prevent that?"

"It's a possibility." Kay sat down on a nearby couch, and from the look on his face, if he could sigh, he would have.

Teran sat down next to Kay. "Revolutions are difficult things to steer. But if that's still what you want, you're off to a good start."

"Yes."

"And if you're still looking for human allies, I might know where you can find some." Most of the Patron's debtors would not have been present in the city for the failed uprising, and maybe they would welcome the chance to join an android insurrection if it meant getting out from under the Patron's thumb. Their numbers would be much smaller than the Revolution had been, but with enough androids on their side, it might be enough to make up the difference.

Something else seemed to be troubling Kay.

"What's wrong?" Teran asked.

"I cannot help but feel responsible for what happened to Kel and Dee," Kay said after a few seconds. "And Von."

"None of it was your fault; they willingly joined you in this fight and knew what that would entail. And Von will be alright, won't they?"

"We will need to gather materials to repair them, but yes, it should be so."

"That's good to hear."

"You are injured." Kay gently probed a cut on Teran's arm he hadn't even known was there.

"Ow," he said on seeing the wound, more out of reflex than because it actually hurt.

Kay withdrew his fingers. "My apologies."

"It wasn't you. I can't feel a thing right now; adrenaline, you know."

"Yes, one of humankind's more advantageous adaptations. Come, you will need that treated. I have medical supplies."

Kay had not only stocked up on medical supplies, but also food and water, more than enough to last Teran a few weeks if he decided to stay this time instead of running away.

They sat down at the table in the middle of the combined kitchen and dining area, and Kay cleaned and dressed the wound on Teran's arm with a touch so light Teran wouldn't have thought androids capable of.

When he said as much, Kay replied, "I have over a thousand of the most sensitive touch receptors ever manufactured for androids in my hands. Still not as many as humans have, but enough that my hands are capable of applying pressure in miniscule increments."

 _That_ sent Teran's thoughts straight to the gutter, and he bit down on his tongue to cut off that train of thought. He bit down a little too hard, perhaps, because Kay's brow furrowed in concern at whatever he saw on Teran's face.

"Are you in pain?" he asked.

"A little," Teran replied.

"Here." Kay tipped out two pills from a bottle into Teran's hand.

His arm would probably start hurting soon anyway, so Teran downed the pills with the proffered glass of water.

He should have asked what was in the pills first, because not long after taking them, his head began to feel heavy and his eyelids began to flutter closed of their own accord. Teran laid out his uninjured arm across the table and rest his head on top, too tired to get up and look for a bedroom.

He came to a little later to the sensation of being picked up like a small child and carried somewhere. Gentle fingers soothingly rubbed circles on his back, massaging away the tension that had built up there over the course of the day. After a short walk, Teran was being set down onto a bed, and blankets were pulled up over him. The hands drew away, but with the last amounts of control he had over his body, Teran reached out to grasp them.

When he awoke properly, his fingers were still resting on something that felt like skin but wasn't quite as soft or warm to the touch. He cracked open his eyes to find Kay sitting in a chair next to the bed, gaze still and distant as he computed something.

"Making sure I don't run away again?" Teran said.

"I would never prevent you from leaving if that was what you desired," Kay promptly replied, looking down at Teran.

"That was another joke. And not even a very good one, because it looks like I'm the one preventing _you_ from leaving." Teran looked at his fingers clasped loosely around Kay's wrist.

"The location does not affect the work I am doing. It seemed to be your desire that I remain, and I too desired to stay."

"That was…nice of you," Teran said, surprised to find that he meant it. Maybe he'd been without human contact for too long—his time in Iscarion barely counted—but when he'd reached out for Kay in his half-conscious state, he'd been hoping Kay wouldn't brush him off. "Thanks for staying."

"Do you desire to leave now?"

"Only as far as to go outside." He might as well make the most of being in the Nexus while he could. "Does this place have a window or a balcony?"

There was a large one-way window in one of the back rooms that allowed them to look over the Nexus while ensuring no one would be able to see them. Teran drank in the sight of the bright colours of the signs that adorned the sides of the buildings, and the moving lights of the streetcars that wound their way through the city.

"Where would you take this revolution of yours from here?" Teran asked. "Once androids are thinking for themselves and not blindly following their programming, will you stay in Altaris? Will you go to the surface?" The androids wouldn't be as adversely affected by the sun as humans were, and it would ensure that the Executors could not pursue them.

"I cannot speak for the others, but I want to live in this society we were created to serve. I want to experience what it means to be human."

"A worthy goal. I think there may be some humans out there who don't know what it means to be human."

"We can work towards the goal together." It wasn't a question, but Kay tilted his head slightly as he looked expectantly at Teran.

"Yeah," he said with a smile. "We can do it together." Teran hadn't until now decided either way, but he'd come to realise that not only did he want to see if this revolution would fare better than the last, but he wanted to spend more time with Kay and get to know him better.

Fingers brushed against his, and he looked down to see Kay slowly inching his fingers around Teran's.

"We could start with this?" Kay asked.

"A good start." Teran held on more firmly to Kay's hand. "And while you're trying out things that humans do, how about this?" Teran slowly leaned in, giving Kay time to reject his advances if he wanted, until his lips met Kay's.

Kay's lips weren't as soft as others Teran had kissed, and they were cold, not warmed by his internal workings like his hands were, but other than that, it wasn't that different to kissing a human. One advantage Kay had was not needing to breathe, so Teran could kiss him for as long as he liked until he needed to come up for air.

"Well?" Teran asked. "Thoughts?"

"I didn't feel anything," Kay said.

"Oh." Teran deflated a little; it hadn't been _that_ bad of a kiss, he'd thought.

"Likely because androids have very few touch receptors around their mouths."

"That makes sense." Teran looked down at where the fingers of his right hand were interlaced with the fingers of Kay's left hand, and squeezed a little tighter. "We could just do this, then?"

"I felt that," Kay said.

"I'd sure hope so, with one thousand state-of-the-art touch receptors in your hands. Otherwise, I'd have to write in a complaint to your manufacturer."

A long pause.

"Was that a joke?"

"Yeah, Kay. It was a joke."


End file.
